Ca. Prisons Get More Money; Gov. Cuts Fall Short

Spending for California’s prison system, the nation’s largest, will rise slightly with a new state budget plan, up approximately $349 million as the inmate population crests in the coming year, reports the Associated Press. The budget provides $5.6 billion in state funds for 32 state prisons and 37 camps housing approximately 162,000 inmates. The budget funds a prison system in turmoil after a year of investigations, scandals, and cost overruns. It includes nearly $5 million to expand the Office of the Inspector General and create an Office of Independent Review to oversee investigations. Nearly $2 million will improve the department’s internal employee disciplinary process.

A major report commissioned by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the system – once a national model – “dysfunctional” – and suggested scrapping the agency that oversees it, curbing power of wardens, and overcoming a code of silence that protects abusive guards. Schwarzenegger, who promised to save $477 million in the systems, fell short. The governor hoped to win $300 million in concessions from prison guards getting a 37 percent, $1 billion pay raise over five years, negotiations with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association produced only $63 million in savings for the new budget.

TCR AT A GLANCE

The award honors individuals in the media or media-related fields who have advanced national understanding on the 21st century challenges of criminal justice. It will be presented Feb 16, 2017 at a dinner at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

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President-elect visits Columbus to meet with first responders and victims in campus incident involving man who drove his car into a crowd and then attacked people with a butcher knife. Trump didn't discuss the assailant, whom he had called “a Somali refugee who should not have been in our country.”

The public is entitled to see virtually all Ohio police dash-cam recordings. the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 7-0, reports the Columbus Dispatch. The court rejected the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s attempt to keep all such recordings secret, even those pointed at an empty back seat or the median of an interstate highway. In its first […]